1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell device and a case thereof, more specifically, to a fuel cell device for charging the battery of a cellular phone and a case thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A fuel cell device, which generates electrical power by filling liquid fuel, for example, is useful for charging the battery of a cellular phone in case of emergency and commercial batteries are not available. In order for a fuel cell device to yield a sufficiently high output, usually two or three fuel cells are connected in series and are accommodated in a case. Furthermore, in practical use, a person places a number of fuel cell devices into a bag for transportation, so it is desirable that the fuel cell device be compact.
FIG. 1 is a view of a fuel cell device 10 of the related art. The fuel cell device 10 has two fuel cells 12 and 13 accommodated in a case 11. The two fuel cells 12 and 13 are separated at a distance by a spacer 14. In FIG. 1, this distance is indicated by the letter “a”, and the reference number 15 represents the space between the fuel cells 12 and 13. There is also space 16 of a width b between the fuel cell 12 and the case 11, and space 17 of a width c between the fuel cell 13 and the case 11. The spaces 15, 16, and 17 are necessary for feeding air into the fuel cells 12 and 13 for the fuel cells 12 and 13 to generate electrical power. In FIG. 1, the reference numbers 18 and 19 represent a fuel feeding port and a pipe, respectively.
For the fuel cells 12 and 13 to generate electrical power, a liquid fuel, such as methanol, is filled into the fuel cells 12 and 13 through the fuel feeding port 18 and the pipe 19. Then the fuel cells 12 and 13 start to generate electrical power with the liquid fuel.
In the above configuration, however, because of the existence of the spaces 15, 16, and 17 inside the case 11, the width of the fuel cell device 10 is large, and it is not easy to make the case 11 compact.